Tag Archives: 20th century fox

Evaluation Questions – 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The media production that we have created an opening title sequence for is a small, low budget, independent British film. This narrows down the options for distributes quite considerably because now we know that we would never get backing from any major Hollywood distributer such as Paramount, Warner bros, Columbia, Disney, Universal or 20th Century Fox that is more concerned with huge budget blockbusters. None of these ‘Big Six’ film distributers would ever consider distributing a film like ours; however some of these companies do have horizontally integrated art-house distribution companies that are involved with production and distribution of smaller independent films.

From all of these the company that would be most likely to back our film would be Fox Search Light, the 20th Century Fox Company. This is because unlike Paramount Vantage, Sony Pictures Classics and Focus Feature (the companies set up for independent films by Paramount, Sony and Universal), Fox Searchlight specializes in independent British films and has been involved in many successful British films such as The Full Monty, Shooting Fish, 28 Days later, Millions, The Last King Of Scotland, 28 Weeks Later, Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. Because of this I think that Fox Searchlight would be one of the companies that would be most likely to distribute our Product.

As well as Fox searchlight there are some companies that are more local that could also be a good choice to help us in production and distribution of our film. This company would work alongside fox searchlight. Because our film is an independently made British film there are only really three choices for this job:

  • Film 4 – Film 4 is a channel 4 owned company that has been behind a large number of independently made films in the UK such as Shaun of the Dead, Attack the Block, Submarine, This is England, 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire. Film 4 has produced many films that have also involved fox searchlight.
  • DNA Films – DNA films is a smaller company that has not backed as many films as film 4 however the some of the releases are very credible, including 28 days later directed by award winning director Danny Boyle.
  • Vertigo Films – Vertigo films was set up in order to distribute the films Football Factory and It’s all Gone Pete Tong. It is the film company behind monsters and other films.

Taking all of this into account I think that the best company for us here would be Vertigo Films. As much as Film 4 has had some extremely credible Independent film releases, recently they have moved more into the larger budgeted side of the independent industry, which is a bracket that our film doesn’t really fit into. DNA films have had some good releases however Vertigo films have had credible releases and some that have more gritty content such as ours including monsters which was a huge success and had a similar type of budget as ours would have if made into a feature length film. For these reasons I think that Vertigo films would be most appropriate to back our film.